Month: October 2018

Nominations to Fill Open Seat on P25 CAP Advisory Panel

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SAFECOM members,

On October 1, 2018, DHS S&T published a 30 Day Federal Register Notice seeking nominations to fill an open seat on the Project 25 Compliance Assessment Program (P25 CAP) Advisory Panel (AP). The P25 CAP AP members provide the views of active local, state, tribal, territorial and federal government users of portable, handheld, mobile vehicle-mounted radios and infrastructure, including repeaters, consoles and gateways. The P25 CAP AP provides recommendations to S&T for strategic direction of the P25 CAP, addresses user input to improve the P25 CAP compliance process and provides feedback to P25 standards committees. The notice can be found here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/10/01/2018-21241/office-for-interoperability-and-compatibility-seeks-nominations-for-the-project-25-compliance.

All expressions of interest and nominations should be submitted to P25CAP@hq.dhs.gov. Please note that the 30 day notice will close on October 31, 2018.

 

Webinar: Connecting Emergency Management Agencies and Water Utilities

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DHS Emergency Services Sector
and
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
present a webinar on
Connecting Emergency Management Agencies and Water Utilities
Webinar Date:
October 18, 2018
1-2 pm Eastern
On October 18, the National Information Sharing Consortium will be hosting a webinar with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Emergency Services Sector-Specific Agency (ESS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Connecting Emergency Management Agencies and Water Utilities.
The webinar will discuss how emergency management agencies and water utilities can increase preparedness and help ensure that communities have essential drinking water and wastewater services during emergencies. The webinar will highlight key actions that emergency management agencies and water utilities can take to build relationships, coordinate planning, share emergency capabilities, develop joint messages, and issue access cards. The webinar will also include some case study examples of how robust partnerships between emergency management agencies and water utilities have improved planning and response efforts.
The DHS ESS/EPA webinar is the fourteenth webinar in the NISC’s Mission-Focused Job Aids Webinar Series that reviews tools, techniques, and standard operating procedures that NISC partners in the homeland security, emergency management, public safety, first responder, and healthcare preparedness communities use to facilitate and manage information sharing. For more information about the webinars series and the NISC, visit the NISC website at www.nisconsortium.org. To become a member of the NISC, click hereto join, membership is free for all users!
Speakers
Sean McSpaden
Executive Director
National Information Sharing Consortium
Lauren Wisniewski
Environmental Engineer
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Nushat Dyson
Team Leader
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The NISC’s Mission
We bring together data owners, custodians, and users from all public safety fields and all sectors to leverage efforts to improve information sharing. We aim to help save lives, better protect property, and build a safer, more secure nation.

 

Public Television Delivers First-Ever Earthquake Early Warning In Under Three Seconds

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Successful Field Trial Shows Why More than 96 Percent of Californians Support Public Broadcasting’s Role in Earthquake Alerts

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA AND WASHINGTON, D.C., October 9, 2018 – The first-ever earthquake early warning in under three seconds was successfully delivered three weeks ago, on September 18, 2018, during a field trial by KVIE, the public television station based in Sacramento, California. Four other California public broadcasting stations will soon be testing public television’s datacasting system for earthquake early warnings: KPBS (San Diego), KQED (San Francisco), PBS SoCal (Los Angeles) and Valley PBS (Fresno).

“KVIE was honored to partner with Cal OES to conduct this critical field trial of earthquake early warnings in California,” said David Lowe, president and general manager of KVIE. “This work is part of KVIE’s commitment to public service and public safety. We are proud to work with the state of California to help alert first responder agencies and the public of a pending earthquake, where seconds matter and lives are at stake.”

“Public broadcasters in California are true pioneers in public safety, demonstrating the lifesaving power of public television’s datacasting infrastructure,” said Patrick Butler, president and chief executive officer of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS). “This field trial shows that public television can deliver the fastest ever earthquake alerts and warnings — in less than three seconds — the first time this dramatic new standard has ever been achieved. (The previous standard was 30 seconds.) When an earthquake hits, every second counts. We are proud to partner with local law enforcement and first responder agencies, especially Cal OES, to use the power of public television to keep all Americans safe.”

America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) and Eagle Hill Consulting have been working with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) and California public television stations on a multi-year project to develop a robust high-speed data delivery capacity for time-sensitive earthquake early warnings in California’s most populated areas. The California Earthquake Early Warning System (CEEWS) is comprised of seismic sensors, data processing centers, and end-user distribution mechanisms to warn individuals, institutions and infrastructure operators of impending shaking once an earthquake is detected. Continue reading →

Tennessee Dept of Safety and Homeland Security Grants Tennessee Public Television $2 Million for Datacasting Pilot Project

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MEMPHIS – The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security is making a $2 million grant to Tennessee’s Public Television Stations to fund a pilot project that will deliver private, secure communication between first responders and their management teams in case of an emergency or natural disaster, according to Commissioner David W. Purkey.

 Arnold Hooper, Tennessee’s Wireless Communications Director for the Department of Safety and Homeland Security, says the grant will be used to install datacasting equipment and software that will leverage a portion of the broadcast transmission of each Tennessee public television station to deliver encrypted public safety video, files, alerts and other data along with regular programming. This new capability will allow public safety agencies to benefit from the existing infrastructure, licensed spectrum and ability to securely deliver content anywhere in the state to an unlimited number of specifically targeted receivers. All public safety content is secure and can only be accessed by personnel who have the credentials and receive equipment. The project will be completed in a 30 month timeline with initial stations being tested and placed into operation within six months of the grant. This first statewide datacasting system will be a model for regional and even national deployments in the future.

Using the datacasting capability and fiber connections already in place among the six Tennessee Public Television Stations, communication between police, fire, medical and government personnel can be targeted within the areas affected by a severe, life-threatening emergency or natural disaster. The six TN stations are Memphis (WKNO), Martin/Lexington/Jackson (WLJT), Nashville (WNPT), Cookeville (WCTE), Knoxville/Sneedville (East TN PBS) and Chattanooga (WTCI). Continue reading →

Andy Seybold’s Public Safety Advocate, October 4, 2018

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T-Band Revisited, New FirstNet Authority CEO. Just to refresh your memories, the T-Band is the 470–512-MHz spectrum that was allocated to UHF-TV channels 14-20 that has since been made available to both public safety and, in some areas, business Land Mobile Radio (LMR) users. This was implemented in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) action in 1971 and today there are eleven major metro areas that make use of the T-Band.

When Congress passed the bill authorizing FirstNet it included other provisions as well. One of these was that the T-Band would be available for spectrum auction nine years after the bill was signed. Once the auctions were over, the public safety community would have to vacate the spectrum within another two years. Those in Congress who added this provision to the bill indicated they had to have a “give-back” of some type to help them justify the release of ten additional megahertz of 700-MHz spectrum for public safety. It was not clear in the law who would pay for T-Band users to move off the T-Band nor where the FCC would find spectrum to accommodate them.

Some in Congress at the time FirstNet was passed into law believed FirstNet would be able to absorb all of the existing LMR users in these eleven metro areas. However, as of today, FirstNet is not ready to take over complete public safety-grade services including off-network voice communications and other functions needed by first responders. Therefore, as the deadline approaches, efforts to have Congress review and rescind this portion of the law have been stepped up.

Read the Entire Post Here

Here are the articles I have selected with the help of Discovery Patterns artificial intelligence. Continue reading →

Senate Approves Bill to Create DHS ‘Operational’ Cyber Unit

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Legislation that would turn the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) into an “operational” unit focused on cybersecurity and infrastructure protection was approved yesterday by the Senate.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act (HR 3359) cleared the Senate by unanimous consent.  The House approved the bill last December (TR Daily, Dec. 11, 2017).  But the amended Senate version will have to return to the House for another vote.

The new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that would be created by the bill would be led by a director rather than an undersecretary and would include three divisions devoted to cybersecurity, infrastructure security, and emergency communications.  Christopher Krebs, DHS’s undersecretary–national protection and programs, would lead the new agency. Continue reading →

Transportation Department Reaffirms Commitment to 5.9 GHz Band

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The Transportation Department today released new guidance for automated vehicles that, among other things, reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that transportation safety applications can use the 5.9 gigahertz band.

The new guidance, “Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0” “builds upon — but does not replace — voluntary guidance” known as “Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety” that was released last year (TR Daily, Sept. 12, 2017), DoT said. Last year’s AV guidance was the first for the Trump administration and followed guidance issued by the Obama administration in 2016 (TR Daily, Sept. 20, 2016).

In AV 3.0, the Transportation Department reaffirmed that “the Department is continuing its work to preserve the ability for transportation safety applications to function in the 5.9 GHz spectrum.”

“Throughout the Nation there are over 70 active deployments of V2X communications utilizing the 5.9 GHz band,” DoT said. “U.S. DOT currently estimates that by the end of 2018, over 18,000 vehicles will be deployed with aftermarket V2X communications devices and over 1,000 infrastructure V2X devices will be installed at the roadside. Furthermore, all seven channels in the 5.9 GHz band are actively utilized in these deployments. In addition to the Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC)-based deployments, private sector companies are already researching and testing Cellular-V2X technology that would also utilize the 5.9 GHz spectrum.”

DoT said that it “is continuing its work to preserve the ability for transportation safety applications to function in the 5.9 GHz spectrum while exploring methods for sharing the spectrum with other users in a manner that maintains priority use for vehicle safety communications. A three-phase test plan was collaboratively developed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the FCC has completed the first phase. Phases 2 and 3 of the spectrum sharing test plan will explore potential sharing solutions under these more real-world conditions.”

The FCC has not yet released the results of the Phase 1 testing, which was done in the FCC’s lab, on sharing of the 5.9 GHz band between DSRC and Wi-Fi operations. The next two phases of testing are expected to be done in the field. Continue reading →

72 Deployables Now Available for FirstNet

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AT&T, Inc., announced today that 72 dedicated deployable assets are now available to the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) system. Some deployables were not delivered as quickly as FirstNet had hoped. AT&T faced a Sept. 30 deadline for ensuring the 72 deployables were in service.

Courtesy TRDaily

FCC to Assess Results of Nationwide WEA/EAS Test

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The FCC plans to assess the results of today’s nationwide wireless emergency alert/Emergency Alert System test, Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Lisa Fowlkes said in a blog posting. “Now that the nationwide test is complete, the next step is to assess the results and identify areas for improvement. The FCC is committed to working with FEMA and other stakeholders to support this effort,” she said.

“We plan to engage with FEMA and wireless providers to learn how today’s Wireless Emergency Alert test performed.  In addition, the radio and television providers that participated in the accompanying Emergency Alert System test will file reports with us about their experience receiving and retransmitting FEMA’s test message.  As we’ve done in the past, we will analyze that data to identify any necessary EAS improvements.  We also welcome feedback from the public about their experience with the test on both systems.  We look forward to assessing all the information available and doing our part to continue strengthening these life-saving alerting systems.”

Courtesy TRDaily

DAC Recommends IP CTS Metrics, TRS Access at Emergency Shelters

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In its last meeting under its current charter, the FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee today approved recommendations to the FCC regarding the compatibility of real-time text (RTT) with refreshable Braille displays, the integration of RTT in telecommunications relay service (TRS) operations, metrics for Internet protocol captioned telephone service (IP CTS), and access to TRS at emergency shelters.

The emergency shelter recommendation urges the FCC to extend its June ruling to allow all TRS providers to be compensated for calls by unregistered TRS users from temporary TRS devices in emergency shelters, and for the FCC to issue an annual public notice to inform emergency shelter providers as well as TRS providers and individuals that TRS calls from emergency shelters will be reimbursable if the shelters provide telecommunications services to the general public. Continue reading →